I would remind you that extremism in defense of liberty is no vice. And let me remind you also that moderation in defense of justice is no virtue.

Wednesday, February 20, 2008

H L Mencken Lives!

People are comparing Barak Obama to JFK. He's Young! He's Hopeful! He's Not Hillary Clinton!Well, all true but there are differences that are huge. Kennedy, the inexperienced and naive mediocrity that was pushed by his maniac father into the presidency, who suffered from satyriasis and amphetamine addiction actually believed in a strong foreign policy (one he lacked the skill to implement) and paid a modest lip-service to a free economy. Possibly his only memorable act as president was his cutting of tax rates, creating the boom years of the sixties. (Dont tell me about the 'Cuban Missle Crisis'; Kennedy had to trade the withdrawal of our missiles in Turkey for the ones the Soviets were installing in Cuba, it was far from the status quo ante that it is portrayed as. He allowed Khrushchev to build the Berlin Wall; his only response was to say "I am a doughnut." His assasination of Diem in Vietnam was one of the worst mistakes made by any president).But I dont think Obama resembles Kennedy. I think he more closely resembles FDR, a president described by the greatest journalist in American History, HL Mencken, as a 'leering snake-oil vendor'. Obama's draconian recipes for every aspect of the American economy are very similar to the monstrosities of FDR's misconceived New Deal. Just as those policies deepened and lengthened the Depression so Obama's policies will precipitate a crash of monumental proportions. The government will panic, and like all socialist governments will print money, causing hyper-inflation and solving two major problems that the socialists could never solve politically.The first problem is the increasing number of people who are dependent on government subsidies and handouts; students, patients, food stamp recipients, ethanol farmers, senior citizens, public employee union pensioners, failing auto companies, every parasite that can bribe, threaten or snivel a subsidy from the overburdened treasury is on the take. Just tweak the indexes to not fully reflect inflation and start printing money. Problem solved. A dishonest government that cant keep its promises and a worthless currency go hand in hand.The second problem is those people who have managed to accumulate private wealth in the form of private pensions or 401k accounts. These are Democratic voters for the most part so outright confiscation is out of the question but the destruction of the value of these savings is a foregone conclusion in a chaotic inflation scenario. If anything else remains you can just enact an 'Excess Assets Tax' and blame it all on mistakes of the previous Bushy Regime.Hyper inflation would also bring a huge group of non-taxpayers into the taxpayer pool. Right now people who earn less than $50k pay no income taxes. If the greeter at Wal-mart is making $250 an hour he becomes 'truly wealthy' under our unindexed tax code, even if his $10,000 a week salary buys less than his $250.00 a week one does now. Its about time these sniveling freeloaders feel the IRS knout.So three or four years from now when we are sitting in the wreckage of all this 'hope' maybe we'll come to our senses and de-socialize but that would only happen if a leader can emerge and there is no one around now who even remotely fits that description (if you say Mutt Romney I deliver a slap to your head). We'll see.